Tag Archives: Socialism

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is one of the most mysterious countries in the world. This is partly because most of the world knows very little about it, and partly because what we do know, or at least think we know, most don’t seem to like. Yet it’s also because so much about this country and its political system just seems bizarre, such as the fact that Kim Jong-il’s birth allegedly caused winter to turn into spring. In an article featured in the Huffington Post capturing the last two, Tim Urban writes:

If you merged the Soviet Union under Stalin with an ancient Chinese Empire, mixed in The Truman Show and then made the whole thing Holocaust-esque, you have modern day North Korea.

The realities of day-to-day life in this country are even stranger; this is a nation in which the populate venerate their leaders as if they had mystical powers, where adults must wear lapel pins of Kim Il-sung, and where a cloth is given to each household for one purpose: to clean the portrait of their Great Leader. The regime impacts upon every aspect of both public and private life, and instigates all sorts of beliefs among ordinary people, many of them lies. The question is, why is this country so odd?

The DPRK (it’s actually illegal for North Koreans to call it North Korea) was founded much like the states of the Eastern Bloc; it was created by the Soviet Union after the Second World War, but it seems to have evolved in an entirely different way to other countries in its position, which is likely a result of several factors…

First of all, the philosophical foundation of the North Korean State differs from that of the Soviet Union and many Soviet-aligned nations; the Juche idea, a concept devised by Kim Il-sung, is centred around the emancipation of the individual. This tenant, which is essentially an ultra-humanistic interpretation of Marxism, seems to clash with the structuralist interpretations of the philosophy and the community-centric, macroscopic lens through which Marxists often make sense of the world. It has also led to cultural perversions in the DPRK, such as the hardline nationalist and isolationist current that is strong in the country. In short, when looking at why North Korea has taken a steep trajectory in its own, bizarre direction, Juche may be able to explain a lot.

However, it is important to take into account the attitudes of the leaders themselves, and especially those of Kim Il-sung, who ruled the country from its birth right up until the 1990s. Perhaps the reason his country is structured this way today is less a result of his theories, and more of his pragmatic actions and contributions whilst in power. Following in his wake, his son and grandson will likely perform/have performed in a similar fashion, keeping the structure of the country intact.

Though to what extent a nation can be shaped purely by who is in charge is debatable. The ideas and theories of individuals certainly play a large role in how political systems are crafted, especially in countries where such a large degree of responsibility rests on the shoulders of individuals, but this certainly does not mean that the significance material conditions inside that country should be overlooked in favour of individual ideas and actions. In the USSR, for example, Leninist theory provided the theoretical basis for the political system, yet I do not believe that the attitudes of individual Soviet citizens can be attributed to his personal views than the reality of Soviet life.

Kim Il-sung, the ‘Great Leader’

Additionally, an important factor that must also be considered is cultural heritage, and we must examine the people in the region, their culture and their tendencies. Much of what we see in the DPRK can also be seen across the region, and throughout different periods of history. The complete veneration of an individual and a strong, patriotic desire to serve one’s country, for example, can both be exemplified in the former Japanese Empire. Thus, it would also be sensible to argue that the reason why North Korea is so starkly different from many of the other communist states is due to the cultural tendencies of those living there.

This would perhaps be able to explain why many of these traditions and ideas held by many North Koreans are not only very strange, but also incredibly reactionary, un-progressive and counter-revolutionary as well. Considering North Korea proclaims itself to be a modern example of revolutionary socialism, and is heralded as such by many self-proclaimed revolutionaries, it clings strongly to ideas and tendencies you may expect such a country to reject, but perhaps cultural baggage plays a greater role than a commitment to the international socialist cause.

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At the end of the day, it is obviously futile to try and pinpoint any individual factor as to why this is such a bizarre nation, and it’s likely a combination of all of the above, alongside others. Take this post as a suggestion, however; a brief insight into the ‘Land of the Morning Calm’ why it’s driven by such an unusual ideological dialogue, and why it differs so significantly from the other socialist states of the twentieth century.

Today being December 25th, it feels very inappropriate to write about anything non-Christmas related, and the ideas I’ve had leading up to this post all seem somewhat out-of-place at this time of the year. Yet nonetheless, I believe I’ve found a way to link the occasion back to the subject of this blog; today I’m asking if Christmas was celebrated in the communist world.

In the Soviet Union, celebration of the holiday was greatly restricted, and it was suppressed as a manifestation of religion. The League of Militant Atheists, an ideological organisation in the country, fuelled the suppression by promoting an anti-religious and anti-Christmas sentiment , and it is perhaps partly due to their efforts that Christmas is still not widely celebrated in Russia today.

The situation is similar in the People’s Republic of China, as the holiday is still not celebrated by many, yet this is less a result of political action as it is of religion; the Chinese Christian population equates to about one percent of the country’s 1.4 billion inhabitants, meaning that few recognise the festival’s religious significance. This is ever more true in the more remote, western regions, where it is likely seen by many as an alien tradition.

Yet despite this, Christmas has increased in popularity throughout China, and whilst suppressed in the Soviet Union, a separate, secular festival on December 31st was celebrated under the socialist regime. This suggests that, irrespective of whatever religious beliefs they may have, humans want to celebrate something this season. In fact, even the modern holiday we call Christmas wasn’t always very Christian; first a week-long Pagan festival concluding on Dec 25, it was adopted by Christians to ‘draw in’ Pagan believers, proving that you don’t need God as an excuse to celebrate..

When discussing socialism, hearing others discuss socialism and looking at the various pro/con arguments on the topic, I’ve come across several ideas as to why communism is a flawed system, why there will never be a revolution and why, at the end of the day, we’re better off how we are. Some cite certain atrocities in various communist countries and make a conclusion about their inevitable presence in such a system, whereas others will simply tell you that it’s an unrealistic goal which will never be achieved in the real world. There are also those who will object on moral grounds, defending their right to private ownership, but perhaps the most interesting proposition I’ve come across is the idea that communism is rendered unachievable by human nature itself.

I can understand how this argument would appeal to many, as it seems to make logical sense; humans have a longstanding tendency towards selfishness. This can be seen in both a social and a biological manner, with mankind’s survival being based on Darwinian principles, and its prosperity on socially Darwinian ones. It would appear that competition is both an innate and necessary component of human wellbeing, which suggests that building a collective society based on the principles of equality is impossible. I’m going to argue the opposite, or, more importantly, I’m going to approach the issue from a Marxist perspective.

In Marx’s eyes, mankind has progressed through various historical epochs, each based on the dominant economic class in the era, which have managed to control and utilise the means of production for their own gain. So far, we have seen society progress from slavery to feudalism, and later, to capitalism. Regardless of your views regrading Marxism generally, a study of global history tells us that this progression is more-or-less accurate, and it provides a solid basis for historical analysis in this case.

Each of the epochs described here are based on the principles of inequality and exploitation, but there is, in fact an earlier stage in this model of human development, referred to by Marx as primitive communism. These were the days of man’s tribal history, where hunter-gatherer societies roamed the planet, and when socialism was the accepted norm. The tribes man formed in the ancient world exemplify society devoid of exploitation, or in other words, a communist lifestyle, that totally defies the judgement of many who claim this isn’t possible.

Several indigenous peoples like these have survived in the present era, such as the Penan people of Borneo, who live under the principles of equality, have no actual leaders (only spokespeople who wield no power) and are known for practising ‘molong’, (never taking more than is necessary). The Adi people of India and the Maasai tribe of East Africa also provide examples of preserved tribal socialism, and Israeli Kibbutzim, alongside various anarchist communities today, serve as successful attempts to recreate this lifestyle in the modern world. They remind us that our condition in the past is not reflective of that today.

Maasai tribesmen

It’s also telling that this was our earliest state of being, for the fact that our first and most basic attempts at civilisation were not based on greed or self-indulgence (rather the reverse) shows that not only are selflessness and collective organisation possible, but they are natural to mankind. Only after individuals took over the productive means did the focus shift onto individual, rather than communal gain, meaning economic exploitation and unequal distribution are learned habits. This argument is further supported by the fact that humanity is still struggling to find happiness, no matter how much wealth we accumulate. Statistics on contentment or satisfaction in developed countries demonstrate this, showing that endless buying and spending do not make us any happier, and suggesting that it is not an innate desire to strive for ones own gain at the expense of another. Needless to say, this kind of consumption is also incredibly unsustainable, meaning that, like it or not, capitalism must give way to a better economic system.

Coming back to Darwinism, I understand that if societal competition is not natural to mankind, this would seem to contradict the competitive biological nature of mankind’s development, based on the principle of survival of the fittest. However, it may surprise the non-Marxist that Marx was a great admirer of Darwin’s, and saw his ideas on the evolution of organisms, through the process of natural selection, to be at one with his own ideas of society’s evolution, through the process of class struggle. It also isn’t necessarily counter-evolutionary that humanity’s natural state is a collective one; it has merely evolved from this condition in the same way that cells and organisms repeatedly do, and nor does the belief that man will ‘return’ to socialism contradict the ideas of competitive evolution, for, with the rise of communism, we are simply seeing the end of an evolutionary process. In a way, we’re seeing something similar in the natural world today; survival of the fittest has determined humanity’s evolution since it’s birth, yet with advances in the medical sciences, we’re now able to preserve ‘unfit’ characteristics and curb natural selection. Should this continue in the future, humanity may never need to adapt, and evolution would no longer occur.

This is why I believe that human nature does not contradict equality, but rather allows for it. True, we have a tendency to put our own needs above others, but at the end of the day, our earliest efforts at working together show that these unhealthy behaviours aren’t innate or fixed, even if they fuel the exploitive economic systems of modern society. In a debate on the benefit and rationality of religion, I once heard it remarked that, unlike squids, which apparently spend almost their entire lives in isolation, humans are social creatures. However unsociable capitalist society may make us seem, I believe this is certainly something to remember.

The image depicting the Maasai tribe was provided by User:Helga76 from Wikimedia Commons (though I added the caption), and was licenced under the following: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

In the preface to ‘Communism: A Very Short Introduction’, Leslie Holmes writes:

‘The overwhelming majority of states that were Communist as recently as the late 1980s have moved on. While, formerly, five communist states remain, the two successful ones (China and Vietnam) are so largely because they have jettisoned many of the original basic tenants of communism and are in some important areas – notably the economy – already post-communist’.

The communist world today

First published in 2009, such a view presented in Holmes’ book is already proving to be especially discerning. Only in late 2014 did the USA and Cuba set aside their long-enduring hostility towards one another, an action which, as I’ve earlier said, I believe will mark the start of socialism’s decline in the Caribbean. Arguably, with China and Vietnam already long gone, this leaves just one state that exists according to strictly socialist principles; North Korea, or officially the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

Ironically, what could be perceived to be the last untarnished communist regime has formally abandoned communist philosophy, a political step on the road to capitalism which the other four countries have yet to take, with their constitution of 2009 describing their country as one ‘guided in its activities by the Juche idea and the Songun idea’. However, Juche, the school of thought based upon ideas of self-sufficiency, and Songun, the national policy of ‘military first’, contribute little in the way of altering the country’s strictly-centralised economy. From the outside, it would appear that the economic situation has persisted without interruption, leaving a country with an equally ‘communistic’ system to the other four, and even more so today, with the relaxations in policy within China or Vietnam. But is all this about to change?

A surprising event in recent news may indicate exactly that, depending on what angle you look at it; North Korea is currently experiencing a nationwide property boom, a concept we’d associate with the capitalist west. In itself, this may not provide a strong enough argument to suggest a foreshadowing of the regime’s collapse, but an article published in the South Korean newspaper ‘The Hankyoreh’ explains how this may be the case. The author references research professor Jung Eun-yi, a leading expert in the field, who ‘argues that there are signs that the housing market in North Korea is turning into a real estate market, rather like South Korea’.

As I’ve said, it’s still only a minor alteration, yet change has to begin somewhere, and it isn’t always as dramatic as the Romanian Revolution of 1989, or even the lifting of the trade embargo against Cuba by the USA. Furthermore, it shouldn’t be underestimated how provocative such a change could be; the article explains how Jung believes this style of market ‘will continue to expand for a significant period of time’, allowing it time to seriously transform the nationwide economy, paving the way for further relaxations on the road to a free market. In short, we learn that Jung thinks 2013’s establishment of the housing delegation offices proves that ‘both central planning and market forces are at work in the North Korean economy today.’, and that, in her opinion, the incorporation of the latter alongside the former into the market also provides evidence for a reformist trend developing under Kim Jong-un’s government; she informs us that ‘the regime is going beyond the military-first policy known as Songun that was instituted by Kim’s father and moving down the path toward socialist capitalism’.

The timing certainly seems right, with the DPRK standing as the last of its kind, and I believe this is exactly the kind of trigger such transition requires. Once more opportunities arise for personal financial gain, enabling the individual, rather than the state, to profit, the iron grip the government maintains over the economy will begin to loosen; like the other socialist states whose colours have somehow clung to the mast after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall, the DPRK’s regime shall eventually crumble. One question, however, remains unanswered: is the fall of Korean communism to be rejoiced or lamented?

There’s obviously no one answer, and it depends not only on your attitude towards communism on the whole, but also towards the North Korean regime. I can’t imagine many conservatives, liberals, or even socialists saddened at the prospect. A dispute could arise among the far left, however, and opinions on North Korea vary from a communist perspective.

Personally, I’d definitely support the ousting of the current leadership, which operates as an absolute monarchy, enjoys luxurious privileges unheard of by the workers it claims to represent, looks to the leader like a prophet, Kim Il-sung like a God, and all in a perverted fashion which contradicts multiple tenants of Marxism. As for the loss of a communist system in the economic sense, I feel much the same as I did for the potential loss of Cuba’s. Yet it doesn’t take an expert to realise that the North Korean system is already flawed, given the famine it produces, the corruption it’s tainted by, and the seemingly endless funding it directs towards the military at the expense of the populace. In fact, if you take all its flaws into consideration, it would even seem sensible to argue that North Korea’s economy has already strayed too far from the communist model it was built upon.

About a century ago, the majority of the British population earned their bread by toiling long hours in the factories, only just able to keep themselves afloat, under the grasp of the obscenely-wealthy bourgeois. Where disaffection would appear commonplace and poverty was accepted as the standard, proletarian rebellion, even communist revolution on the streets of Manchester or East London would seem entirely possible. So much so, in fact, that Marx himself regarded England as the most likely candidate for such a revolution to occur.

Today, the small island off the North-western coast of Europe is certainly a changed one. The traditional image of the London Docklands as a sprawling mass of smog-ridden factories has been replaced by that of an economically-prosperous, market-thriving metropolis. The prospects of socialist revolution today may seem a ridiculous idea, but recently, a whole new wave of ‘revolutionary’ populism has arisen.

Who are these twenty-first century revolutionaries? And, more importantly, who exactly are they fighting for?

Russell Brand, the actor and comedian recently ranked the fourth most influential thinker by Prospect magazine, has become a voice of revolution in the United Kingdom, an idea that attracts many. Leftist culture among the student population has always been present, yet today it seems that radical ideas have taken a turn worth mentioning. Now, individuals like Brand alongside ‘Anonymous’, a network of associated activists, have taken to protest and public demonstration. Against what, it isn’t always clear, but their broadly liberal and socialist aims seem to point to something larger than their cause, this being a general shift in attitude, with radicalism starting to make a slow reappearance in the country.

Anonymous’ signiture logo portrayed in the form of street art

As I’ve previously mentioned, our capitalist enterprise was, not so long ago, a worker-dominant state under the shackles of the capitalist giants. Such a transformation, from this situation to the present one, was made peacefully, during the process of ‘de-industrialisation’ which the country has experienced. These demonstrations, however, are small reminders that the revolutionary culture has not deserted society. And of course, every revolution needs a target, so once again we are forced to realise that the achievement of human rights, liberty, and justice for the oppressed in Britain, is by no means complete.

Yet should it be the task of Russell Brand and all the alike to complete it?

I recently came across an organisation in the UK known as the Revolutionary Communist Group (RCG), who, in a video, pointed out that the Labour Party has betrayed socialism and no longer represents the working class as a whole. Now, this ‘revolutionary’ movement has embraced populism in a similar manner, and it’s just a case of whether or not they will do justice for those they represent. Today, I don’t feel I need to spend a great deal of time discussing why the Labour Party in Britain have turned their back on true leftism, an issue on which I agree with the RCG. Will the new branch of ‘revolutionaries’ do the same? Judging by their superficiality, their lack of direction or dogmatism, and their somewhat casual attitude towards the revoution, I’d say so.

Whilst ‘the Labour Party clearly demonstrates such misrepresentation, I believe it’s only one example; whilst Britain has been entirely transformed over the past century, it seems those who truly deserve justice have simply been transferred from one manner of life to the next, with their political and social representation taken care of by those above them in the economic pecking order. If anybody wants to see a difference made to British society similar to that which these liberal and socialist organisations advocate, this must change. Revolution must lose its superficially-attractive shine, and activism will take on genuinely-motivated qualities.

Though I don’t necessarily believe members of other classes cannot partake in or assist the socialist movement (if this was the case, how would movements such as the Bolsheviks in Russia have managed to seize power?), we could learn a lesson from Karl Marx, who stated that ‘the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself’. If such an idea was applied in Britain, real change might just occur.

The featured image was provided by KylaBorg from Wikimedia Commons. Here is a link to the image’s licence:

Recently, as you probably know, the winner of the Greek election turned out to be the socialist party Syriza, or ‘Coalition of the Radical Left’. Even the name is enough to suggest the ideological positions party members are coming from, alongside the fact that their former communist leader, Alexis Tsipras named their child Orpheus Ernesto, a possible tribute to Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara. Their economic stance, however, shall be far more influential in the months to come: an opposition to austerity. When first hearing of them, I thought that their political and economic views clashed somewhat, given the nature of the organisation which they have sparked tensions within, this being the European Union.

I think we can all agree that the EU was founded on broadly leftist principles. Themes of proletarian internationalism can be seen within it, for example. To demonstrate this, the political climate in the United Kingdom, (whose situation shall likely be similar to that of other countries) is one under which the debate on EU membership has assumed ideological characteristics: the left support it, whilst significant movement on the right oppose it.

But the leader of the British Labour Party, Ed Milliband, according to the Telegraph newspaper, was once forced to deny that he was an ‘old-fashioned socialist’ highlighting the extent to which socialism in mainstream British politics has been watered-down. Tsipras, on the other hand, whilst perhaps not reflecting the characteristics seen in the KKE (Communist Party of Greece), would obviously uphold and practise far more radical views than Milliband, and yet what the Greek Prime Minister intends to bring to the scene of international politics was described by Andrew Smart, in an article published by the Idler Academy, as ‘two fingers to the tyranny of the cult of productivity.’

It’s this description that I’m interested in, as the conclusion I’ve come to is this: The European Union is no longer a leftist organisation. Whatever socialist principles it was founded upon have dried up with the current recession, and perhaps only the most moderate of Europe’s contempory left see anything in the union anymore. Jean-Claude Juncker does not strive for ‘international justice’ and ‘economic liberation for the proletariat’ or even any moderate imitations of true socialism: He wants to put an end to debt, and will happily wait for the countries of both Eastern and Western Europe, no matter how dismal or prosperous their economies, to pay. This will translate to bad news for their citizens. A slogan used by the Communist Party USA; ‘People and Nature before Profits’, in my opinion, outlines a programme which the EU should adopt.

Tsipras is the first to take a significant stance, and I can only hope he’s not the only one. I’d like to see this as the point at which the parties of Europe are beginning to realise that whilst debt presents significant concern, the demands of the people must come first. In any case, one can determine not only from the conditions causing the election result in Greece, but also the hostile attitudes it caused within the EU, the true nature of the organisation. Based in Brussels, the European Union is currently an aloof bureaucracy centred on the elimination of debt at the cost of wellbeing, when it should learn to value the peoples’ urgent needs more, especially in cases such as Greece today.

When the current thaw in U.S./Cuban relations made the news, it became clear that there were two sides to this debate. While many wanted to lift the embargo against the Cuban people, others undoubtedly wanted to starve the country’s autocratic regime. I opposed these sanctions, but for an entirely different reason: I wanted to preserve what may be the world’s last honest attempt at socialism.

On the opposite side of the globe, the Vietnamese Communist Party maintains firm leadership, yet what has truly become of Vietnam? A country, this is, where Coca-Cola is bought and sold as a consumer product – but it’s not alone. The changes which such a country has seen are comparable to those which have taken place in the People’s Republic of China, as within both China and Vietnam is a system driven and animated by force which seems to lie somewhere between communist pride and nationalism, and perhaps some petty statement of reaching ‘true socialism’ through the market economies they have constructed for themselves in socialism’s name. Given this is the world which the two nations have slipped into, will the current economic reforms concerning America’s embargo against Cuba have the same consequences?

All I can say is that, given we’re awfully short of communist states, I hope not.

This will be a sensitive situation for many who lived under the repressive regime at the height of the Cold War, or even today, in a country where citizens have risked their lives to try and reach Florida, ninety miles away. The Black Book of Communism estimates that between 15, 000 and 17, 000 were killed under the regime, and (whatever the actual number) it’s hard to imagine many friends, relatives, or sympathisers of these victims supporting Barrack Obama’s decision to open the door to Cuba; I imagine they’d rather the United States continued to show no mercy and no remorse to the regime of what the Lawton Foundation of Human Rights called an ‘enslaved island’.

I’ll accept that, but despite all this, I still believe that socialism should be given a chance. Not an illusion of socialism, but a full-blooded attempt. If, as a result of welcoming the United States, Cuba substitutes its own attempt with an illusion, as has been the case with both China and Vietnam, which nations will remain to keep the red flag flying? Even if one took Marxist Economic Determinism – the theory of the proletariat inevitably leading the world to communism due to their own exploitation – for granted; even if one maintained the belief that communism is the final and inevitable truth, surely they’d accept that the sooner a nation such as Cuba may arrive at that truth, the sooner the same shall occur on a worldwide scale. If Cuba’s attempt, which may well be the last attempt remaining, is thwarted by these reforms, this cannot happen.

I also want to talk about not just what Cuba is capable of achieving, but what it has already achieved. When discussing communism with somebody opposed to the idea, they did remark that Cuba may be the only place where socialism has actually been partly successful. It is a country with free education, and not only free healthcare, but a healthcare system recognised internationally for its brilliance. According to the news source Al Jazeera, the infant mortality rate in the country is one of the lowest in the world, slightly lower than that of the United States, and life expectancy is over 77 years, (among the world’s highest).

Now Al Jazeera also states that the system which exists in Cuba is on the decline, but if this is what the country have constructed from autocracy, and political repression, imagine what the socialist regime, if truly developed, could construct. Just because it is not at such a point currently does not mean that this shall continue to be the case, and it definitely deserves a chance. Thus, when the end product is the possibility of achieving true socialism, alongside the end of capitalist class-based oppression sooner, the current existence of the autocratic Cuban state can be justified in communism’s name.

Finally, it must not be forgotten that simply because the United States is no longer pretending Cuba doesn’t exist does not mean liberty will prosper. Whether or not you’d be prepared to support autocratic socialism is really irrelevant, because, whilst in one circumstance socialism shall exist and in another it will not, autocracy will remain regardless (at least for the foreseeable future). As Senator Marco Rubio, a Floridian Republican and a child of Cuban immigrants said: “This entire policy shift announced today is based on an illusion, on a lie, the lie and the illusion that more commerce and access to money and goods will translate to political freedom for the Cuban people”.